


Masks

by Sleepless_in_Starbucks



Series: Tumblr Prompt Fills [4]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, Platonic DLAMP - Freeform, Prompt Fill, Sympathetic Deceit Sanders, Tiny Angst, from tumblr, remy is mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-27
Updated: 2019-07-27
Packaged: 2020-07-21 04:14:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19995685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sleepless_in_Starbucks/pseuds/Sleepless_in_Starbucks
Summary: Prompt: May I please have Deceit in these glasses if that is ok with you?(Picture: https://metaphoricalpluto.tumblr.com/post/186190802357 )





	Masks

Since Deceit had first appeared to Thomas, he had been hanging out in the Light sides realm more and more. Most of the time, he said it was because they had to work together now; Deceit wanted to talk with them about how to help Thomas. Other times, he’d randomly appear, making it extremely clear he had not brought himself to the Light realm on purpose.

Apparently, since Thomas knew about him, Thomas’s own mind was attempting to force him into the Light realm. Normally, it was fine, and the other sides just brushed it off as an inconvenience.

Today, however, Deceit had found himself pulled up right behind Roman. He tried to step back, knowing that scaring the fantastical and armed side would not end well, but he bumped into a chair instead. Roman jerked around, sword half drawn as the plate of pasta he was holding fell on the ground and shattered.

Roman looked at Deceit, a fire in his eyes as the deceitful side took another step back. “I’m so  _ not _ sorry.”

“Yeah I bet you are.” Roman replied sarcastically, looking at his pasta in annoyance. “Stupid snake…”

Deceit bit back a response to that, sinking out before he’d have to deal with regeneration from the sword Roman looked ready to run through him. He appeared in his room, taking another step back the minute his feet appeared, as if he expected Roman to have followed him.

But no one rose up, and Deceit let out a sigh over how easily he was riled up. He took his bowler hat off, dropping it beside him as he sat on his bed. He ran a hand over his scales.

_ Stupid snake… _

It wasn’t like the other sides hadn’t pointed out his resemblance to a snake before. In fact, Deceit was normally all for the comparison. Snakes had a sly sort of charm to them that Deceit appreciated.

Recently, however, Deceit had started to wonder if the comparison was not, in fact, in his favor. The sly charm he enjoyed being associated with was probably seen negatively by the sides- example one: the incident that had just occurred.

Deceit had never been ashamed of his scales. But if he wanted the others to trust him, if he wanted to work with them to help Thomas and maybe even get them to understand that he wasn’t the dark side they all saw, he may benefit from showing them a little less.

He couldn’t, of course, just make them vanish altogether. Shapeshifting didn’t work on them- Thomas had, subconsciously, assigned him the role of the lying snake, and regardless of the form he tried to take that would always follow him- and even just using makeup to hide them would just look straight-up suspicious.

Plus, putting on the makeup for Logan and Patton had taken  _ hours _ and that had been for good purposes. He wasn’t going to do that here just to have himself found out in a few minutes.

So he started with a mask.

Idea one went horribly.

He had gone with a phantom of the opera style mask, golden instead of white, hoping they’d just assume he was adding to his outfit. It had gone over mostly well, Roman even complimenting him on the flair it added.

Virgil’s first response, on the other hand, was to scoff and ask him if he was trying to be a disco ball instead of a snake. Deceit wasn’t one hundred percent sure he had meant it in such a way to see through him, but it was close enough for him.

The next day, he tried wearing a sparkling yellow bandana that he wore lopsidedly over his scales. He mostly got weird looks about it until Roman told him applying sparkles directly to his scales would look much better. So that didn’t work.

Deceit then tried simply wearing his hair so that it covered them, the effort to grow his hair and keep it grown only a minor strain in the back of his mind. This one was accepted by the group, but Patton kept tucking it behind his ear, cooing about how his eye was too pretty to hide.

He had admitted defeat earlier that day, deciding he didn’t need to deal with being teased for his blush. His hair shortened back to its normal length the minute he was back in the room, sighing. His list of semi-decent ideas was officially out.

Deceit glanced at the notepad that was sitting on his desk, a list of stupid ideas written out alongside the few good ones. He picked it up and frowned at it. At least one of them had to be better than his scales being visible, right?

Turns out, the answer was ‘nope.’

Some of the more stunning failures included switching his bowler hat for a baseball cap to pull down over his face (no one would mention it, but the looks he got were… not good), a large beanie (aside from covering both his eyes to work, every single side asked him why he was copying Joan), and sunglasses (didn’t work great, since they didn’t cover most of his scales, but he hoped they’d distract from them… until Remy had met him in the kitchen, saying he had smelled someone trying to steal his style).

And now, he was out except for one option he barely wanted to consider. It was wholley stupid and unlikely to work, but, hey, at this point, what did he have left to lose?

That was why, day number twenty-nine of this whole game, Deceit was to be found lounging in the common area wearing ridiculous alien sunglasses. The frames were yellow to pretend to match his style, and Remy hadn’t attempted to fight him over these, so it worked for him.

Worked for him until, busy trying to block out the world and play on his phone despite the huge blockade the glasses presented to this, he didn’t notice the light sides exchanging awkward glances as they grouped up around him.

“Um, Deceit?” Deceit looked up, trying not to startle when he realized he was effectively cornered.

Doing what he did best, Deceit pretended to be unaffected by this revelation as he turned off his phone and slipped it into his pocket. “Yes?”

Patton had pressed his hands together, looking unsure of how to go with this. “Are you okay?”

“ _ Of course _ .” Deceit lied. He slipped between truth and lie often enough he hoped they would assume this was a truth.

“Are you sure, kiddo?” Patton pressed. “You’ve been acting… strange, lately.”

“I  _ don’t _ know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, cut the bullcrap, Deceit.” Virgil snapped, managing to startle the entire group. “You’ve been wearing the most ridiculous things for the last month and we want to know why.”

Deceit hesitated in giving him an answer, thinking of the most believable lie. After a moment, he smirked, channeling all the charm he could. “Got to keep you all on your feet, don’t I?”

“That makes no sense.” Roman said after glancing between the others. “And I know no sense.”

Deceit frowned at Roman, not sure what that meant. He was going to voice his confusion, hopefully distract from the situation they were trying to focus on, but Logan spoke up first.

“Have we considered looking at the common thread between these unusual occurrences?” He asked, frowning when the other sides just looked confused. “Deceit was always covering his scales.”

The rest of the Light sides’ eyes widened in understanding before they turned to look at Deceit again. The deceitful side considered sinking out, wondering if they would drop it or follow him.

“Deceit.” Patton said, worriedly but sternly when he actually attempted to leave. “What are you trying to do?”

“...Leave?”

Until that point, Deceit didn’t know that blinks could be disappointed, or that they could all occur at the same moment between four people. He sighed, pulling off the alien glasses and setting them on the couch next to him.

“I have  _ not _ recently become aware of the fact your dislike for my scales.” Deceit said after a minute of silently staring at the glasses. “Or, rather, your dislike for the creature they link me to.”

“Creature?” Logan repeated. “Do you mean snake?”

“ _ No _ .”

The Light sides glanced among each other again. Deceit opted to continue focusing his attention elsewhere.

“Deceit, what on earth gave you that impression?” Roman asked, and Deceit tried not to glare at him, given his own comment had been the final straw on the snake’s back.

“You four have many times connected me to snakes in a negative way.” Deceit explained, too weary to keep himself from telling the truth. “I just thought I’d do you all a favor and remove the source of that connection for you.”

“We don’t negatively connect you to snakes.” Patton said, sounding confused and sad.

Deceit crossed his arms. “Roman called me a stupid snake the last time I forcefully popped up.”

The group turned to glare at Roman, who held up his hands in defense. “He made me drop my pasta! I am very passionate about my pasta!”

“It doesn’t matter.” Deceit said, waving it off as he stood up and grabbed the alien glasses. “It was a wake-up call. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d rather just retire to my room for the rest of the day. Or week.” He added under his breath.

“Deceit, wait.” The scaley side stopped in his walk, but he didn’t turn to face Patton. “I’m sorry.”

Deceit spun around, surprised by the comment. His surprise only grew when he found the moral side’s expression ashamed and not amused Deceit had been so easily tricked.

Beside him, Logan straightened his glasses and cleared his throat before adding, “As am I. As are all of us, I believe.” Roman and Virgil nodded in agreement.

“I-” Deceit cut himself off, pausing to try and sense the lie. As far as he could tell, however, there wasn’t one. “You  _ are _ lying.”

“We’re not.” Roman protested, not recognizing the lie. “Deceit- we liken you to a snake because we thought you liked that. We never mean it as an insult.”

“Yeah.” Virgil agreed, looking awkwardly at the floor as he added. “Plus, your scales are cool. Not weird or anything.”

If Deceit was less preoccupied, he would have teased the anxious side for the rare show of a non-sarcastic emotion. At the moment, he was busy trying to decide if this was more likely to be a dream or a hallucination, because there was no way this was happening.

“You can still return to your room if you wish.” Logan continued when Deceit didn’t respond. “But if not, perhaps there is a way we can make up this… miscommunication incident to you?”

This brought Deceit back to his senses enough to nod his head. “You  _ do  _ have to do something.”

“We want to do something.” Patton pushed before grinning. “Come on! It can be something really stupid, if you want.”

Deceit smirked. “Something really stupid, you  _ don’t _ say?”

~~

Thomas stood in the middle of his living room, various bills clutched in his hands. Normally, budgeting was a Logan only issue, but Thomas needed to change enough things he felt it was a good idea to talk to all the Light sides for this one.

“Guys?” He asked the empty room while looking at the numbers, having done this too many times to feel stupid about it anymore. “We need to talk.”

A moment later, Thomas’s personality rose around him.

“How may we assist, Thomas?” Logan asked from behind him after the normal greetings were said.

“I need to cut some things-” Thomas stopped talking as he looked up, finding his fanciful side to be… different. Glancing around, he found the difference present for all the sides present: they were all wearing alien glasses, frames matching their respective colour.

He frowned, trying to decide what was going on. “Why…?”

Virgil just smiled tightly. “Don’t ask.”

**Author's Note:**

> My Tumblr: https://sleepless-in-starbucks.tumblr.com/


End file.
